Because She Never Let Them in: Irish Immigration a Century Ago and Today

Abstract

A century ago, and for most of the twentieth century, Ireland was a land of emigration, not immigration. However, in the space of less than a decade in the 2000s, Ireland was transformed from a homogeneous community, where non-native residents were in a very small minority, to one in which one-sixth of its inhabitants are foreign-born. The paper will compare immigration and attitudes towards immigrants in the very different Irelands of a century ago and of the present.

Keywords: immigration, racism, Ireland, public opinion

JEL Classification: F22, O15